Analysis: once voting is finished, the knives will really come out

When the polls close at 10 tonight, Gordon Brown should be braced for more bad news - and not just because Labour is going to take a severe beating from the electorate.

By Andrew Porter, Political Editor

6:45AM BST 04 Jun 2009

It is then that many of his MPs will feel able to speak out against the leadership and the direction in which the Prime Minister is taking the party. "I will hold fire until after the election," said one who has been tipped as a future party leader.

It is astonishing that in the run-up to polling day for the Europeanandlocal elections, the usual attempt at cosmetic unity has been splintered by a succession of resignations from the Government.

The scale of Mr Brown's leadership problems now dwarfs anything he had to put up with last summer. Six weeks ago, the Cabinet was accepting that he would lead them to the next election. Now all bets are off.

The expenses row has precipitated a catastrophic meltdown across Westminster, but it is Mr Brown who is reaping the whirlwind. Yesterday, the temperature rose for the third consecutive day when Hazel Blears walked out.

Having chosen the back benches she instantly becomes a danger. Of course she doesn't have the standing of Geoffrey Howe when he precipitated the demise of Margaret Thatcher. But she doesn't have to, because Mr Brown is not the Iron Lady, who had three towering victories behind her and a great deal of party and grassroots support.

The Prime Minister must privately fear that she or another prominent MP might become a figurehead for the disillusion that now threatens to spill over into mutiny.

Last year, when David Miliband launched a putative bid for the leadership with a newspaper article, Mr Brown beat it off easily because there was a lack of co-ordinated action, with just a few nonentity Blairites failing to provide momentum.

But he knows only too well that it does not take 100 names to unseat a serving Prime Minister. His supporters forced Tony Blair's early exit with less than 20.

This time there will need to be more names and more walkouts from Cabinet. And they have to come before Mr Brown's reshuffle, which is likely to be tomorrow.

High profile walkouts would be difficult to deal with. Alistair Darling leaving rather than losing the Treasury could be the final straw.

However, the bond between the two Scots is still strong. During last week's recess the Browns were at Mr Darling's Edinburgh home. The Prime Minister's children played happily in the garden.

Mr Darling would need a major moment of clarity to knife the Prime Minister now. He knows, as do many of his colleagues, that only one person can remove Gordon Brown, and that is Gordon Brown himself.